Nurturing

I read something yesterday. I am sure that it is largely indicative of my own sometimes baffling journey through this life that it stirred me so profoundly, but that does not make it any less powerful or important in general terms. Right away I added it to my Food for Thought page. But it wouldn’t leave me. All night the words swam around my head as I was in and out of sleep with little Ted. So this morning I decided that this one short paragraph was worth repeating in a more forthright manner. I am quoting Lynne Forrest a lot at the moment and I make no apology for it. She has, in my humble opinion, got it right and her blog is well worth visiting. Often. 🙂

She speaks of what she calls the Three Faces of Victim which is both eye-opening and profoundly important in our understanding of the way people who are locked in victim consciousness behave. (I would highly recommend visiting her site to read her explanation). In fact, the more we learn about it, the more likely we are to realise that the vast majority of people we know operate from that place. Us included. (I speak for myself, anyway). And in her book, she explains the route out of that triangle of victimhood. The paragraph that hit home to me, on the levels of mother, friend and daughter, is the following:

“Being a nurturer, we know that the most loving thing we can do for loved ones is to respect their ability to pursue their own goals whether or not we approve of their choices. Rather than seeing them as weaklings that need to be fixed, we adjust our thoughts / beliefs /actions so that we allow ourselves to allow others to experience and learn from the consequences of their own choices and mistakes. We are no longer tempted then to take responsibility for their problems or the outcomes in their lives. In other words, we understand more clearly what is our business and what is not.